INTRODUCTION1.1. Pharmacognosy The detailed study of medicines originating from natural sources is described as Pharmacognosy. According to the American Society of Pharmacognosy “pharmacognosy is the study of the physical, chemical, biochemical and biological properties of drugs, pharmaceutical substances or potential drugs or pharmaceutical substances of natural origin as well as the search for new drugs from natural sources” (Tyler, 1999). As practiced today, pharmacognosy includes the in-depth study of natural products from plants, bacteria, fungi, and marine organisms, botanical dietary supplements, and herbal remedies (Cardellina, 2002). Pharmacognosy can also be defined as “the scientific and systematized study of the physical, chemical, structural and biological characteristics of crude drugs, as well as their history, method of cultivation, harvesting and preparation for commercial purposes” (Gokhele et al., 2008) . . It is science that provides the infrastructure for the evolution of new drugs. It is a long-standing pharmaceutical science that has played an alternative role in the research, characterization, standardization and production of plant material and phytomedicines regarding their macroscopic, microscopic and biochemical characteristics (Kaplan, 2001; Kinghorn, 2002; Gokhele et al., 2008). Pharmacognosy is the scientific study of crude drugs originating from four different natural sources: plants, animals, minerals, and metals. It is estimated that 90% of crude drugs come from plant sources while the rest come from three other sources (Joy et al., 1998). The pharmacognostic study of crude drugs involves five usual parameters, namely botanical, organoleptic, physical, chemical and pharmacological parameters...... half of the article ......and a modern multidisciplinary discipline that could serve to arouse interest in medicinal sciences. The growing interest in the study of natural products in drug development, as well as the rapid change in investigation strategies, are the driving forces modernizing pharmacognosy. Pharmacognosy today focuses on finding new and unique molecules and revealing unknown targets by studying such molecules in nature. It is now well understood that pharmacognosy is one of several scientific disciplines that have an inimitable strategic position in linking biology with chemistry and even medicine. New and improved strategies regarding organism selection, bioanalytical techniques, isolation procedures, and structure elucidation are constantly being developed based on the latest advances in pharmacognosy (Bruhn & Bohlin, 1997; Claeson & Bohlin, 1997).